


apple pining

by misura



Category: The Locked Tomb Trilogy | Gideon the Ninth Series - Tamsyn Muir
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28131093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: "Sweet agony," declared Ortus, which was nothing if not a novel way to describe Magnus's apple pie.
Relationships: Ortus Nigenad/Abigail Pent/Magnus Quinn
Comments: 17
Kudos: 16
Collections: Yuletide Madness 2020





	apple pining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [corvidlesbian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corvidlesbian/gifts).



"Sweet agony," declared Ortus, which was nothing if not a novel way to describe Magnus's apple pie.

In truth, it was the 'sweet' more than the 'agony' part that struck at Magnus's pride; apples coming in many sorts and sizes, each with their own level of tartness, he tried to adjust the amount of sugar used accordingly, and thus an accusation of the end product of his labor being 'sweet' as good as equaled an accusation of incompetence.

"I say," he said. He'd have preferred the evening to end in sex, but if a duel was Ortus's preference, Magnus was prepared to give him one, as befitted a good host.

Ortus bestowed a look upon him that spoke of faint befuddlement with a touch of, yes, agony of a most intense and very imaginary kind. "I am suffering from what one might call poet's triangulation."

Magnus blinked, then regretted his mistake: if he'd kept his eyes closed for a longer time, he might have missed the puzzled expression on Abigail's face. It only lasted a moment, of course; terrible manners to show a guest he'd left you in a state of incomprehension.

"I fear poetry isn't one of my areas of expertise," she said, which was a lie, given that only the other night, she'd nearly driven Magnus to distraction by quoting some astonishingly filthy classic cavalier poetry at him - the modernized translation that was apparently a matter of heated debate in academic circles.

Magnus wasn't entirely clear on why 'their tongues battled for dominance' should be understood to mean 'they had a civilized argument, standing well apart and not raising their voices' and therefore translated as such, but then, he was neither historian nor poet.

"These past days, I have been quite unable to continue my work," declared Ortus. "Your beauty, my lady, is deserving of at least five books, and yet I cannot simply abandon the epic that has been so dear to me for so long. You understand, do you not?"

Abigail smiled at him. "Of course."

"And now there is this apple pie." Ortus sighed. "It is too much!"

"Too much what?" demanded Magnus. "Please, sir. Enlighten me." Ortus being of the Ninth, it seemed doubtful his experience with apple pie exceeded Magnus's. Indeed, Magnus had heard (in rumors only, it went without saying) that both the concept of 'dessert' and 'pie' were unknown in that House.

Looking at the Reverend Daughter, he'd been willing to believe it.

Looking at the Reverend Daughter, he'd been willing to accept that to some people, there might be more important matters in life than being a good cook and bringing joy to one's wife.

And then he'd looked at Ortus, and Ortus had looked at Abigail, and Abigail had looked at him, and, well. If you suspected the fate of the world might shortly be at stake, you might as well try to enjoy yourself before that happened.

"Three books, at least," declared Ortus. He stared down at the crumbs on his plate. "And a prologue. /With fruit the tree heavy grew, with apples sweet and crisp and good/."

"Honored, Ninth," said Magnus. "And very flattered, of course, but really, there's no need. It's just dessert. You stick with us, you'll taste lots more like it." He meant it as a reassurance, to lift Ortus's spirits.

"I cannot." Ortus sounded profoundly bereaved. "My artistic soul couldn't bear it."

Magnus had been faced with dieters and vegetarians and people with remarkably strong opinions about orchards, but people with artistic souls were new to him. He _liked_ Ortus; the man's poetry was capital, and perfectly good fun, just as Ortus himself was perfectly good fun, and yet Magnus was aware of the wide chasm gaping between their Houses.

The truth was, on some level, he simply didn't understand the Ninth. Not Ortus's fault, of course; one couldn't help one's House. Still, it made communication difficult sometimes.

"Perhaps your artistic soul could bear some coffee?" suggested Abigail, rising smoothly.

Ortus looked torn, so Magnus decided to step in, or up, or any which way. "It's terrible stuff, Ninth, I promise you. Not at all the thing to inspire poetry, unless it's an elegy. That's a lament, right?"

Abigail looked as if she'd have liked to kick him under the table.

"Coffee might serve. It will help keep me awake when the muse strikes at midnight," said Ortus.

"I'll have to make sure there's a pen and some paper next to our bed, then."

Ortus stared at him, less befuddled and more - "Beg pardon?"

"Granted," said Magnus. "I mean, what's a little pardon compared to my wife? Not," he hastily added, "that she's mine to give, of course, not at all; she's entirely her own woman, just as I'm entirely my own man, or, well, not quite anymore, I suppose, being her cavalier and all, but you get my drift, I'm sure."

Ortus did not look like he was getting anyone's drift.

Abigail smiled and put her hand on Ortus's arm and said, "Twice the blade," which evidently meant something to Ortus: he flushed, and said, "Lady, I am unworthy."

"That is for me to decide, is it not?" Abigail said. "But, come, coffee first, everything else later. Unless you had rather not?"

"Coffee sounds delightful." Ortus sounded like someone had invited him to a funeral, except possibly not, seeing as how the Ninth supposedly were quite keen on that sort of thing.

"You could always make it a sonnet," Magnus said. "Great stuff, sonnets, I've always felt. Or a limerick. There once was a cavalier of the Ninth, and so on, and so forth."

Ortus's expression indicated considerable doubt, possibly because there really weren't that many proper rhymes for 'Ninth' (or 'Fifth' for that matter).

"Coffee," Abigail said firmly, her hand on Ortus's arm and a smile on her face.

"For you, my lady, anything," said Ortus, and Magnus almost wanted to reassure him the coffee wasn't _that_ terrible, actually, but he decided that discretion might be the better part of valor here and besides, whether or not he knew it, Ortus was quite right.

(The reverse, alas, might also come about, in which event Magnus supposed they'd simply have to see what could be done. Such was life, when the fate of the universe rested on one's wife's lovely shoulders.)


End file.
